Chamber and committees

Local authorities are distinct corporate bodies whose powers and duties are set out in statute. The Scottish Government does not have a record of how many social work departments have their own policy in place for missing children.

Multi-agency risk assessment and co-ordination is essential to managing risk, responding to and tracking missing children. Local Child Protection Committees should ensure that there are specific and appropriate arrangements in place through policy, guidance, protocols and procedures which are known and implemented by relevant services. Local authority social work departments are a core multi-agency partner. The National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021, which replaced the 2014 guidance, states that each agency needs to develop its own policies and protocols to manage risk and track missing children. These should sit alongside and make reference to the multi-agency Child Protection Committee guidance reflecting that other agencies, for example, Police Scotland, will have to become involved very quickly when a child goes missing.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) provides funding to support and facilitate high quality applied research across a wide health and care remit

CSO Approach to Funding – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

This includes funding in support of research in areas of public health, or health and care where delivery may be outside of clinical settings

CSO's annual budget from 2012-13 to 2022-23 is provided below:

2012-13 £67.9 million

2013-14 £68.3 million

2014-15 £68.5 million

2015-16 £66.8 million

2016-17 £64.8 million

2017-18 £64.4 million

2018-19 £67.2 million

2019-20 £69.9 million

2020-21 £69.9 million

2021-22 £75.4 million (includes £3.5 million non-recurring COVID-19 funding)

2022-23 £78.4 million

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18 who are being treated in Scotland.

We recognise it is not possible to deliver all services and treatments in all locations. That is why, where patients are required to travel we already expect boards to take a patient centred approach and to have in place arrangements to allow and support people to receive treatment elsewhere. In addition, financial support for travel is available for patients and authorised escorts attending hospital appointments, in line with eligibility criteria and medical requirements.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend the age range.

Those aged between 18 – 25 years old continue to have access to the Patient Travel Expenses Scheme or the Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme, both of which provide eligible claimants with support to meet travel costs associated with outpatient appointments.

In its first year of operation, a total of £2,056,179 was paid out to Scotland’s 14 territorial Health Boards for the Young Patients Family Fund in 2021-22.

Scottish Government does not yet hold data on how many individual people have benefitted so far.

The Young Patients Family Fund provides valuable financial support to eligible visitors of inpatients up to the age of 18. There are currently no plans to extend eligibility for outpatient treatment.

Enforcement of legislation around the sale and purchase of NVP's is carried out by Local Authorities as part of the ETSEP (Enhanced Tobacco (and NVP) Sales Enforcement Programme) overseen by The Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS), and funded by the Scottish Government. These activities in relation to this are reported annually to the Scottish Government with figures provided on a national basis.

The following table shows verified sales of NVPs to under 18s, following test purchase failures during trading standards activity over the past five financial years.

The cost of grid infrastructure enhancements is an area of policy reserved to the UK Government. The recent Ofgem reform will mean that from the 1st of April 2023 generation and storage will pay less upfront costs and some of these costs will be socialised across the relevant network.

The Scottish Government wishes to see network costs reformed to support greater uptake of renewables generation and storage. However, this cannot done at the expense of financially vulnerable and fuel poor.

Those most vulnerable are already experiencing difficulties due to the cost of living energy crisis and care needs to be taken to ensure that those least able to pay do not end up paying the costs for those who can afford domestic generation and storage.

The Scottish Government will continue to make the case for comprehensive reform of network charges that supports delivery of net zero at the lowest cost to the consumer.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling all forms of racism, including antisemitism. We adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in June 2017. This is the Scottish Government position and it applies to all Ministers.

Institutions are aware of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and many are actively consulting within their communities on it. I understand that five institutions have made the decision to adopt the definition following detailed consideration. However, as autonomous bodies, adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism remains a matter for each institution to consider individually, with its staff and student communities.

Importantly, Universities Scotland and all 19 higher education institutions have been clear that there is absolutely no place for antisemitism nor racial or religious intolerance of any kind, in higher education.

Universities Scotland is actively engaging with the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) and the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) and has welcomed the opportunity to discuss the IHRA definition of antisemitism and current issues faced by Jewish students. It has confirmed that it is working with SCoJeC on a programme of action to share good practice across institutions and to find ways of offering more support to Jewish students across the sector, particularly where communities are very small in number.

UJS offers training to students and most recently, following a successful pilot at an English institution, to university staff on antisemitism. Universities Scotland has advised that this is something that several Scottish HEIs are interested in exploring. You may also be aware that Universities UK produced a practical guide to tackling antisemitism in collaboration with UJS in 2021.

The Scottish Government is actively engaged in consultation with Jewish students, Jewish community organisations, and stakeholders in higher education as part of our wider approach to tackling antisemitism.

On 23 February 2022, I held a round table discussion on antisemitism in higher education with Jewish students, representatives from the Jewish community, and stakeholders from the higher education sector. The event was organised in response to a letter from UJS regarding universities and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

It was an opportunity for students to share their experiences of antisemitism and also to hear from stakeholders about the work they are doing to confront this issue in practice. The discussion was very productive, with all parties agreeing to undertake positive actions to address antisemitism on campus going forward. A summary of the meeting will be published on the Scottish Government website, and made publicly accessible, in due course.

The Scottish Government welcomed the publication of this report and is considering its conclusions and any actions to be taken, whether nationally or locally, as a result of the research findings. In particular, the information will inform our ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in areas such as antenatal education, telecare and visiting.

We published our maternity and neonatal visiting guidance Coronavirus (COVID-19): hospital visiting guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) which aligns with wider NHS guidance and the lifting of restrictions, and includes advice on partner and sibling visiting.